THE Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WCCIG) has announced the appointment of seven members to serve on its Board of Directors for the year 2022-2023. Existing President, Rewena Elliot, has been re-elected and the organisation will also now place special focus on building the capacity of its members.

During the Chamber’s third Annual General Meeting (AGM), held virtually recently, Elliot was re-elected to serve as President.

“We want to focus a bit more on our members and see how we can build them whether it’s through specific workshops or programmes; and how best we can lobby for whatever changes they may want in a specific industry,” Elliot shared in an interview with Pepperpot Magazine, adding, “What we plan to do in training and development is to focus a bit more on what our members are lacking; finding the specific things that they need.”

The Members of the Board of Directors and the companies they represent are as follows: Elliot – Falcon Logistics Inc. A Blue Water Shipping Affiliate; Aysha Harrop – XL Engineering; Shamela John – Resysco by SJ; Alista Bishop – AX Investment & Consultants Inc.; Anita Ramprasad – Prestige Management Consultants Inc.; Natasha Waddle – Xpress Business Solutions; and Josephine Tapp – B&J Civil Works. Elliot is very pleased and humbled that she was once again supported for re-election so that she can use her office to benefit dozens of women within the next year through the workshops and programmes that the WCCIG facilitates.

In brief remarks at the Annual General Meeting, Elliot highlighted some of the accomplishments during the year 2021-2022. Among those was the launch of the WE3A Initiative geared at Strengthening Women Entrepreneurs in Value Chains and the provision of mentorship and opportunities to women.

The Board of Directors has committed to adopting the vision of WCCIG and pledges to continue working towards creating a business environment that fosters the growth and development of women-owned and led businesses, while building relationships for the improvement of the membership.

One of the things on the cards soon is a formalised work plan where the directors will have a meeting to close off the 2021-2022 year. The new work plan was crafted after a careful review of the past year, and members are looking forward to implementing the new plan in the coming year.

For the new year, some of the things discussed include continuing the work with the We3A: Strengthening Women Entrepreneurs in Value Chains project and promoting the initiative a bit more for more Guyanese women-owned businesses to benefit. This project affects six regions and since its launch last August, work has been done in two – Regions Three and Four.

“We have four more regions to go and so that will take a rigorous plan. We will have to do some heavy lifting as it relates to getting to the outskirt regions… logistics in those regions; to get there, find the women to be involved in the programme. We will be working along with our Project Coordinator who will craft a plan that is suitable for us to execute in those regions,” Elliot shared.

The WCCIG president noted that over the past few weeks, the Chamber has been invited to participate in some trade missions (from the US, Canada, etc.) and before these, there were several business meets that the members were exposed to. So the members had an opportunity to connect with worthwhile networking and partnership ventures and expose themselves to events that boost their businesses and showcase their talents.

Further, she said the plan is to strengthen the Chamber’s relationship with government agencies and other entities as they work to benefit dozens of women over the next year. The intention is not to just grow the membership, but to build the members whether it’s through their business or in their personal capacity.